The Grey-Shepherd Method
by rosegoldfocus
Summary: What if Derek and Meredith had been married before her internship at Seattle Grace? I know this story has been done a thousand different times but I really like the concept of them so this is my take on it. MERDER season one
1. A Hard Day's Night

_I might actually kill him._

That was Meredith's first thought as she woke up on her mother's couch, in her mother's living room, naked. Even though they had lived there for nearly two weeks now and her mother hadn't lived there in nearly four years, it was always going to be her mother's house.

The _he_ in question was sprawled out on the living room floor, also naked, lying face down but had a blanket covering him.

Leaning down, she snatched the blanket off of him, exposing him to the elements before grabbing a throw cushion and throwing it onto his bare bottom, startling him awake.

"We have to get up," She told him as he blinked up at her wearily.

With a smirk, he reached out to grab his pants, "Why don't you just come back down here and we'll pick up where we left off?"

" _No_ Derek, I'm late. You have to get up, _now_."

"You're not late."

"I will be if you don't get up. It's my first day of work. Just because you don't have to go in until later, doesn't mean I get to," She told him firmly, ignoring the growing need. She watched as he stood up, buttoning up his pants and glancing around the room.

"You know, this place really needs a good cleaning. Look at all the dust. If we're going to live here, it can't stay packed away forever."

She shot him a look, telling him that she already knew that but that wasn't going to make her do it any quicker. "It was my mother's house, you know that. You know what?" She decided. "We don't have to do the thing."

"What thing? We can do anything you want," He looked at her suggestively which she shot down quickly with a look.

"I'm gonna go upstairs and shower, okay? And when I get back down here, you won't be down here wandering around half naked, got it?" _It was really distracting_.

"I could use a shower."

"You could use a shower, after I've left, not before, after." He still hadn't seemed to budge on the idea that was floating around his mind. "Derek."

"Meredith," He mocked her back, laughing as she rolled her eyes and turned around to storm back up the stairs.

"I mean it!" She shouted back down them at him.

* * *

Pulling the door shut behind her, Meredith looked down to the driveway where their two cars sat. He old beat-up jeep sat next to his fancy Porsche and she had to laugh at the contrast between the two cars. The two cars almost represented them somehow.

Derek had been nagging her to get a new car for years, he was terrified that her jeep was going to get her killed somehow. Heck, he had even offered to buy her a new car countless times but she refused to budge on the issue.

She had saved up all her own money to buy the car herself, she wasn't going to budge anytime soon unless the car really did kill her one day.

The engine took a little longer than it should to start up as she chucked her purse into the passengers seat and put it into reverse, slowly pulling out of the driveway before beginning the twenty minute drive towards the hospital.

* * *

She was late and she knew it as she made her way down the hallways to the OR where the rest of the interns were.

As Meredith entered the room, she could hear Richard starting his speech that he had used probably hundreds of times.

 _"Each of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school, being taught by doctors. Today... you are the doctors._ " As she entered the room, she couldn't help but notice the look Richard shot her as she smiled sheepishly. _"The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of you life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition."_

 _"Eight of you will switch to an easier speciality. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play...that's up to you."_

Richard finished his speech, which she knew from past experience was the last portion of the intern's introduction. Meredith had also managed to miss the tour of the hospital, but considering she spent many of her early years wandering around the place, she thought that it didn't matter too much.

They were all dismissed to the intern locker room to change into their scrubs, with their residents waiting for them.

She already knew her resident was nicknamed _the Nazi,_ which couldn't be a good thing considering it was Richard who was the one who told her that. He even seemed a little scared of him.

Her wedding and engagement rings were already hanging from a chain that Derek had bought her the previous week. They had mutually agreed to keep their marriage on the down low, only a select few knowing exactly what their relationship was.

It was the best decision considering most people would from on any form of relationship between someone and their boss, and Meredith was already under enough pressure as it was using her birth name because of her mother.

That also meant that she was going to be just Dr Grey and not Dr Grey-Shepherd, like she would have preferred. But maybe that would come later.

Pulling the blue scrub shirt over her head, she glanced around the room, taking particular note of just how many males were around her. Glancing to the Asian girl next to her, she spoke up, "Only six women out of twenty."

The other girl seemed slightly startled by her voice but replied anyway, "Yeah, I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, that's going to help with the respect thing?"

Meredith couldn't help the smile that came to her face at the woman's response, maybe they could be friends.

Ellis would be rolling over in her grave at that thought if she was in one to begin with. _You aren't supposed to make friends with the competition,_ She would say.

She briefly remembered the girl's face from the night before at the intern mixer she had been bragged to by her husband. She decided to take a shot at the girl's name, "You're Cristina right?"

The dark-haired girl nodded as residents filtered into the room, calling out their intern's names.

"Which resident are you assigned to? I got Bailey."

"The Nazi? Me too."

"You got the nazi? So did I," A male's voice cut in from across the locker room. Both girls turned to look at the owner of the voice. As Meredith looked at him, she thought for a moment that the kid wasn't going to make it through the program before she brushed the thought away.

The boy continued to ramble on and brought Meredith out of her thoughts, "At least we'll be tortured together, right?" Both she and Cristina turned looked away from him, finding the conversation awkward but he kept speaking. "I'm George, George O'Malley. Uh, we met at the mixer. You had on a black dress with a slit up the side, scrappy sandals..."

Both girls shot him a look, Meredith smiling at him a little. Sure, she remembered him, but Derek was also there, pulling faces at her from across the room. Realisation took over George, "Now you think I'm gay. No, I'm not gay."

Cristina walked away with an 'uh-huh'.

"It's - It's just that you were - you were very unforgettable."

The conversation was getting extremely uncomfortable Meredith as she brought a finger up to her chest where the rings sat, fingering them a little as she thought about the hell Derek would give the poor intern if he saw this happening.

Thankfully, a man stepped into the room and starting calling more people, "O'Malley, Yang, Grey, Stevens."

Meredith thought she heard George mutter something behind her but brushed it off as she walked towards the man and Cristina. Cristina was already there, asking the man for directions to Bailey.

"End of the hall," He told her and both she and Cristina looked to see a small woman leaning against the desk writing in what was probably a chart.

"That's the nazi?" Cristina asked in disbelief.

"I thought the nazi would be a guy."

"I thought the nazi would be a... nazi."

A blonde girl strode up from behind the three of them, overtaking and started talking to them, "Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant and they call her the nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice."

Cristina gave the blonde a once over before deciding, "Let me guess, you must be the model."

The look they received answered that question.

* * *

"You said five rules. That was only four."

She didn't want to be the one that stood up to 'the nazi' but that was only four rules and she _had_ said five. Dr Bailey's pager beeped from the waistband of her scrubs. She pulled it off, read over the message and looked up at her four interns in front of her.

"Rule number five - when I move you move."

The next thing they knew, Bailey had barrelled past them and was running down the hallway to wherever they were going.

000

Quickly, they had made it to the helipad where a trauma was coming in. The wind from the chopper's blades was making it hard to hold the gurney in place while they transferred the young girl onto it but they managed to do it eventually.

Everything was being rattled off to them as they made their way down into a trauma room so they could begin to treat the girl.

The four of them began frantically doing everything they could to stop the seizure in its path.

"All right, get her on her side," Bailey ordered.

"Izzie, ten milligrams diazepam I.M."

"No, no. The white lead is on the right. Righty, whitey - smoke over fire."

"A large-bore I.V. Don't let the blood hemolyze. Let's go!"

As soon as the diazepam was injected, the girl stopped shaking as Meredith let out a sigh of relief. Her first day was a lot more hectic than she first thought it was going to be.

"What do we have? A wet fish on dry land." A new voice called out from the door and Meredith turned towards the new voice. A dark-skinned tall man was walking through the door, grabbing the chart that was being handed to him.

"Absolutely, Dr. Burke."

* * *

Of course she was the one to have to take Katie for a CT. That was the one place that she didn't know where it was as it was off limits to the public. They had been pacing up and down different hallways for the last twenty minutes, trying to find the right place to go all the while listening to Katie ramble on and on about how she was missing her pageant show and how her talent was some sort of gymnastics that she couldn't pronounce.

Currently, they were pacing up and down the hallways of the morgue.

Katie was going on and on about her pageant before she sat up a little more, looking around, "You're so lost. What are you, new?" She asked.

It was getting to the point where she was about to give up and page Derek to come help her and direct her in the direction of CT. He had been working here for a week before she had began and he was a neurosurgeon. CT's were practically his best friend.

Thankfully, Meredith came across signs that directed her in the right direction of the CT room and pushed Katie towards it.

* * *

Seven hours had never gone by so slowly in her life.

Katie's CT had come up clean, leaving them with no explanation as to what was causing the seizures. After that, Bailey had given her a long list of jobs for her to complete before she could go to lunch.

As she entered the cafeteria where the rest of her fellow interns sat, she could see George looking at her as he stuffed a piece of food into his mouth and she knew they were talking about her mother. With an internal sigh, she dropped her tray down onto the table.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands." The entire table was looking at her in shock. "What?"

If Meredith was being honest, she would have much preferred to each lunch in her husband's office, but he had been pulled into surgery so that left her with the cafeteria instead.

"Good afternoon, interns." Dr Burke's voice came from behind her and she turned slightly to look at him as he walked around the table and came to a stop next to George. She knew exactly what was going to happen and pitied George because she knew the purpose of the surgery.

"It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honour of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice."

"George O'Malley."

The boy in question looked startled as Burke's hand came down to slap him on that back and he sat up a little straighter, looking questioningly at Burke as if to see if he was joking, "Me?"

"You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations. Enjoy it."

They all sat in silence for a moment before George broke it again, "Did he say me?"

* * *

Meredith whipped around as she heard two people enter the room. "Katie, honey, mom and dad are here."

She could see the panic in the parent's eyes as Katie didn't seem to respond to them. "They gave her a sedative for the C.T. scan, so she's a little groggy."

"Will she be alright?"

"Our doctor at home said that she might need an operation. Is that true?"

"What kind of operation?"

The questions being fired at her began to throw her off guard as she stepped back a little from the parents advancing on her. "She's, um - well..."

"You know what, I'm not _the_ doctor. I'm _a_ _doctor_ , but I'm not _Katie's_ doctor, so I'll go get him for you." Meredith rambled out as she stepped back again and again until she was out the door.

* * *

Meredith had been looking for Dr Bailey for ten minutes when she pushed open the door, only to stumble into the woman in question.

Bailey noticed the look on her intern's face and quickly assumed the worst, "What?"

"Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them or do I ask Burke?" She blurted out in one breath, the smaller woman scaring her a little.

"No, Burke's off the case. Katie belongs to the new attending now, Dr Shepherd. He's over there," Bailey gestured towards the staircase before hurrying off somewhere else.

She missed the smile on Meredith's face as she heard that she would be working with her husband on the case. Derek was talking to a couple of people, probably a patients family when he happened to glance over in her direction.

Derek did a double take when he spotted her standing there before she turned around and walked back out through the door, knowing that he would follow her.

As she walked down the hallway, a hand wrapped around her arm and dragged her off in a different direction. Meredith already knew it was Derek, so didn't freak too much at the action.

"Dr Shepherd." She greeted him with a simple nod as she checked the stair case for anyone that could possibly be there and hear something that they shouldn't.

"Dr Shepherd?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "This morning it was Derek, along with the last seven years but now it's Dr Shepherd?"

"Dr Shepherd, we should pretend it never happened."

"What never happened - you sleeping with me the last seven years or you yelling at me this morning? Because they are all fond memories I'd like to hold onto." Derek could see the familiar glint in her eyes and leaned down to kiss her.

Meredith, however, pushed on his chest slightly to stop him. "This can't exist at work, work is where you are my boss and home is where you are my husband. We've been over this, Derek."

"I can't believe this, you took advantage of me last night, I was drunk and good looking and you took advantage."

"Okay, I was the one who was drunk, and you're not that good looking."

"Maybe not today. Last night, I was very good - looking. I had my red shirt on. You took advantage." He accused.

"I did not take advantage - "

Derek cut her off, "Want to take advantage again - say Friday night?"

Meredith looked at him disbelievingly, "Seriously, you are unbelievable. You're an attending and I'm your intern."

"But you're my wife and I'm your husband."

"Not at work, how many times do I have to tell you?"

Derek was giving her 'the look' again. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He tried to play innocent.

"Like you've seen me naked!" She exclaimed.

"But I have, many, many times."

"This," She gestured between them. "Is inappropriate. Has that ever occurred to you?" And with that, Meredith turned and left her frustrated husband behind, completely forgetting her original reason for coming to him to begin with.

* * *

Katie Bryce was officially driving her insane.

At last count, she had been paged to Katie's room twelve times, each time because Katie was bored and nothing was wrong with her.

So the thirteenth time she was paged to Katie's room, she didn't run. Instead, she walked up the stairs, pulling open the door. A loud commotion caught Meredith's attention from down the end of the hall and she quickly realised that it was coming from Katie's room.

Sprinting down the hall, she knocked into several different nurses.

"What took you so long?" Someone shouted at her as she entered the room and took in the sight before her.

"She's having multiple grand mal seizures. Now, how do you want to proceed?"

"Dr Grey, are you listening to me?"

"She's got diazepam - two milligrams lorazepam - I just give the second dose."

"Dr Grey, you need to tell us what you want to do."

"Dr Grey!"

Meredith could hear the nurse yelling at her constantly, trying to get some form of instruction out of her but she was frozen on the spot. Finally, she managed to snap herself out of her daze and began running through everything she knew in her mind.

Her chest was beginning to heave in panic as she made a grab for Katie's chart at the end of the bed.

"Okay, she's full on lorazepam?"

"She's had four milligrams."

"You paged Dr Bailey and Dr Shepherd?"

"Lorazepam's not working." Someone called out from the bedside.

"Phenobarbital - load her with phenobarbital." She ordered, trying to come up with something, anything. The nurse grabbed the syringe and injected it into the I.V.

"Pheno's in."

"No change."

"You paged Dr Shepherd?"

"I just told you." The nurse snapped at her as she tried to stabilise the flailing teen.

"Well, page him again, stat." She needed her husband to get there soon because she was quickly running out of options.

"What do you want to do?"

"Dr Grey, you need to tell us what you want to do."

Before she could gather her thoughts, the monitor let out a piercing shriek, indicating that Katie was flatlining, but it had managed to snap Meredith back into the real world. Running forward, she grabbed the paddle, almost forgetting the gel on them, "Charge the paddles to two -hundred."

"Charged."

"Clear."

The shock did nothing to help Katie, who had finally stopped seizing but at the same time, her heart had stopped. "Still V-fib. Nothing."

"Charging."

"Nineteen seconds."

"Charge them to three - hundred."

"Three - hundred. Anything?"

"Twenty - seven seconds."

"Charge to three sixty. Come on Katie."

The voices around her began to blur into nothing as she demanded the nurse to charge the paddles again for her. As she pressed them down onto Katie's chest, the heart monitor began to beep at a normal rhythm.

At that moment, Derek chose to burst into the room and she looked at him with wild eyes, "What the hell happened?"

"Where the hell were you? She had a seizure and her heart stopped."

"You were supposed to be monitoring her."

"I checked on her - "

"I got her. Just - Just go." Her husband demanded and Meredith gave him one last look before she turned and walked out of the room. She couldn't believe him, he was blaming her for him not responding to his pager.

As she walked back down the hallway, she walked past Bailey who was saying something to her but she was too focused on not throwing up all over the floor to care.

Finally, the doors to the hospital came into view and she made a final mad dash towards them, stumbling out onto the grass and supporting herself on a tree. She had always been a stress vomiter, she couldn't help it. She had a feeling that her mother had caused that little tidbit with her constant demands for Meredith to be the best. The nausea just got the better of her when her stress levels rose too high.

Once Meredith was done, she turned to see Cristina standing there. As she walked past, she muttered out a, "You tell anyone, ever..."

Pulling open the door with what was probably too much force, Meredith made her way back to the intern locker room to rinse the nasty after taste of vomit from her mouth.

* * *

Entering the conference room, Meredith glanced around looking for anyone she might know or could sit by. Cristina was sitting against the glass window opposite her on a cabinet. Shrugging, she made her way over and hopped up next to her, watching as she was apparently suturing a banana. "What are you doing?"

"I'm suturing a banana with the vain hope that it wakes me up," Cristina told her, not taking her eyes off her work. She had to admit, it did seem like a pretty good idea.

George let out a chuckle from his position against the wall and Cristina snapped at him, "What are you smiling at 007?" Quickly followed by a, "I'm sorry. I get mean when I'm tired."

"You know what? I don't care. I comforted a family and I got to hang out in the O.R. today. All is well."

"Does anybody know why we're here?"

It was a valid question. Glancing around the room at the twenty other occupants, Meredith assumed that someone had paged every surgical intern. It seemed that non of them knew why they were being paged there, and she wasn't sure if it was something good or if they had all collectively done something wrong.

"Well, good morning."

Hearing her husbands voice at the door, Meredith glanced up to see him walk in through the door. Nobody but her would be able to tell but he hadn't got much sleep last night, she could see it in his stance.

Derek was a healer; and the fact that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with Katie was starting to get to him. He had been like it since she had known him. But if she was honest, trying to figure out what was wrong with Katie was starting to drive her insane as well.

But then Meredith remembered the way Derek had snapped at her earlier on because Katie's heart stopped. He still hadn't apologised to her yet for it. She knew he only snapped at her because of the stress but it still hurt. She loved him and with her upbringing, she and loved ones didn't mix well. Meredith was always afraid that she'd do something wrong to drive them away.

"I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon." Just with that simple sentence, she knew what Derek was planning to do. He hated asking for help, but he knew it was time to do so.

"I'm going to ask interns for help." And there it was.

"I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds. The labs are clean, the scans are pure, but she's having seizures - grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's gonna die if I don't make a diagnosis, which is where you come in."

"I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes. I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired. You're busy. You got more work than you can possibly handle. I understand, so I'm going to give you an incentive."

"Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do - scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure." _That was how he managed to perk everyone's interest_ , Meredith noted.

"Dr Bailey's going to hand everyone a copy of Katie's chart. The tock is ticking fast people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."

Meredith sat back and watched as all the interns dived towards the table, their greedy hands grabbing at a copy of Katie's chart which she had memorised by that point.

Instead, Meredith turned towards the door and headed out, following the familiar figure as he made his way towards his office.

He threw open the door and slipped inside. Just as he was about to close the door, Meredith managed to slip her foot inside and keep it open. Startled by the motion, Derek whipped around to face her, the anxiety melting to relaxation in seconds.

"Shouldn't you be scrambling to figure out what's wrong with Katie?" He asked.

Shrugging, she responded, "I've already memorised her chart, it's nothing new to me."

The pair lapsed into a silence before Meredith spoke again, "You snapped at me earlier."

"What?" Derek had a genuine look of confusion on his face as if he didn't remember what he had done earlier in Katie's room.

"You yelled at me when I told you that Katie had a seizure and her heart stopped." For some reason, the tears began to build in her eyes and she blinked quickly to get rid of them. "I - It wasn't my fault she had a seizure. I was checking on her every time she paged me 9 - 1 - 1. Do you know how many times she paged me that? Twelve. She had nurses page me twelve times for no reason other than to complain. The one time I don't take it seriously, it's a real emergency."

"And then I started to freak out, I couldn't breath properly and the nurses were yelling at me and all these thoughts were swirling through my mind. I kept asking them to page you, and you didn't show up until it was too late."

Derek studied her for a moment, watching the way she stood and her facial expression. He could tell she was exhausted with just one look. Reaching out towards her, he pulled her towards him, cradling her body to his as he held her there. "I'm sorry."

A few tears slid down her cheeks, quickly stopped by the fabric of his scrub shirt, "I just didn't think it would be this stressful." In a much quieter voice, she admitted, "I threw up."

Knowing about her stress vomiting, Derek pushed her back from him a little and looked into her eyes, "When?"

"Just after Katie flatlined."

"I'm so sorry," He told her again, pulling her back towards him. The pair stood like that for a moment longer before they finally separated.

"Now, I do believe I have patients to check up on before Bailey gets on at me for not doing it."

Standing up on her toes, Meredith leant forward to press a kiss onto Derek's lips before breaking it off, stopping him from making it more heated.

She heard him groan in frustration as she left, laughing to herself.

* * *

The library was a good place to start, Meredith thought as she handed back a chart she was flipping through. Bailey had assigned her to a post-op case that needed to be monitored hourly.

Just as she pushed away from the nurse's desk, Cristina came up from behind her, "Hey, I want in on Shepherd's surgery. You've been the intern in on Katie since the start. You want to work together? We find the answer, we have a 50 - 50 chance of scrubbing in."

"I'll work with you, but I don't want in on the surgery. You can have it."

"You're kidding? It's the biggest opportunity any intern will ever get."

"I don't want to spend any more time with Shepherd than I have to." _Because I spend enough time with him as it is and if you ever find out, god you'd hate me more than you already do._

"What do you have against Shepherd?"

 _He's my husband._ "If we find the answer, the surgery's yours. Do you want to work together or not?"

"Deal."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, they were both surrounded by several different sheets of paper and books, having come to nothing with Katie's case. "So she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It's not a tutor because her CT's clean"

Cristina took a breath, looking over at Meredith, who had her head buried in a book, "Are you seriously not gonna tell me why you won't work with Shepherd?"

"No. What about infection?"

"No, there's no white count, she had no CT lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap. Just tell me."

Meredith decided to give in, "You can't comment, make a face or react in any way.'' She could feel Cristina's stare boring into the side of her head as she refused to make eye contact. "He's my husband."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cristina trying not to react in any way but she could see the questions bubbling, wanting to spill out. "What about an aneurysm?"

"No blood on the CT and no headaches."

"Okay, there's no drug use, no pregnancy, no trauma... Is he good? I mean, he looks like he'd be good. Is he any good?"

"I told you no asking questions. And I barely know you, why would I tell about my sex life to you?" Meredith asked as she got up from her position next to Cristina to sit opposite her.

"Actually, you said no comments," Cristina pointed out.

"We're out of answers. What if no one comes up with anything?"

"You mean what if she dies?"

"Yeah."

Cristina shrunk down a little, "This is gonna sound really bad, but I really wanted that surgery."

"She's just never gonna get the chance to turn into a person," Meredith sighed. "The sum total of her existence will be almost winning miss teen whatever. You know what her pageant talent is?"

"They have talent?" Cristina remarked sarcastically causing Meredith to giggle a little.

"Rhythmic gymnastics."

"Oh, come on."

"What is rhythmic gymnastics? I can't even say it. I don't know what it is."

The pair broke out into giggles but things started to fall into place in Meredith's mind. Cristina noticed that Meredith had gotten silent and asked, "What? Meredith, what?"

"Get up. Come on."

* * *

Skidding around the corner, Cristina exclaimed excitedly, "The only thing that she would possibly need is an angiogram."

The elevator sounded from their left and they turned just in time to see Derek entering the elevator. "Oh. Oh, Dr Shepherd, just one moment."

Derek turned to see his wife and one of the other interns in her group behind him. He noticed the look of excitement in Meredith's eyes and couldn't help but wonder what caused it.

"Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know that, but we have to save her life anyway." Meredith rolled her eyes at her husband's comment. He was always making stupid remarks like that but it was something that she found oddly charming.

"She has no headaches, no new pain, her CT is clean. There's no medical proof of an aneurysm."

"Right?"

"But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?"

"There are no indicators?"

"She twisted her ankle practising for the pageant." Cristina shoved her hand in between the doors to stop them from closing.

"I appreciate you trying to help but - " Derek shot a look towards his wife who was standing there watching him.

"She fell when she twisted her ankle, she fell." This time, Meredith cut in.

"It was no big deal, not even a bump to the head. She got up, iced her ankle and everything was fine. It was a fall so minor her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history. But she did - she did fall."

"You know what the chances are a that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm? One in a million - literally!" Derek called out as the doors closed completely this time.

Cristina began to walk away from the doors, having given up on getting Derek to believe them. Meredith, however, knew better. Within seconds, the door opened again revelaing Derek standing on the other side.

Meredith smiled at him, knowing that he had seen what they were telling him and was willing to give what they suggested a shot. He stepped off the elevator towards them, "Let's go."

"Where?" Cristina asked, confused.

"To find out if Katie's one in a million."

* * *

They both stood on either side of Derek as he walked through the hallways towards Katie's room once more, "She could have gone through her whole life without that ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot..."

"And it exploded."

"Exactly, now I can fix it."

"You two did great work," Derek placed a hand on Meredith's lower back and caressed it softly before pulling away. "Love to stay and kiss your asses, but I got to tell Katie's parents she's having surgery."

Cristina and Meredith exchanged a look, after which Cristina stepped forward, "Dr Shepherd, you'd said that you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped?"

"Oh, yes, right. I'm sorry I can't take you both. It's gonna be a full house. Meredith, I'll see you in the O.R."

Up until that point, Meredith had been zoned out, not listening to the conversation until Derek mentioned her name. Just as she opened her mouth to protest, Derek had walked away and Cristina had turned to her, her face contoured into anger and annoyance.

She tried to open her mouth to say something, anything, but Cristina had already disappeared down the hallway.

* * *

Coming around the corner of the basement wall, Meredith was met with Cristina and Ozzie sitting side -by -side on a gurney.

Crossing her arms, Meredith leant against the wall. "I'll tell him I changed my mind."

"Don't do me any favours. It's fine."

"Cristina - "

"You did a cutthroat thing. Deal with it. Don't come to me for absolution. You want to be a shark? Be a shark."

"I'm not - " Meredith tried to defend herself but was cut off again.

"Oh yes, you are. Only it makes you feel all bad in your warm, gooey places. No, screw you. I don't get picked for surgeries 'cause I slept with my boss, and I didn't get into med school 'cause I have a famous mother. Some of us have to earn what we get."

The last two comments stung. She hated being compared to her mother or being accused of using her husband. Cristina had managed to hit her where it hurt in one sentence.

Giving the duo one final look, Meredith turned around and stormed away.

* * *

She found Derek in Katie's room later, shaving off her hair in preparation for the surgery.

"I promised I'd make her look cool. Apparently being a bald beauty queen is the worst thing that happened in the history of the world."

She smiled at him slightly as he turned the razor off, "Did you choose me for the surgery because I'm your wife?"

Derek looked straight at her and responded with a simple, "Yes." The look she gave him was enough to make him take it back. "I'm kidding."

"I'm not gonna scrub in for surgery. You should ask Cristina. She really wants it."

"You're Katie's doctor. And on your first day, with very little training, you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through to the finish. You shouldn't lettuce fact that we're married get in the way of you taking your shot."

Meredith glanced at the floor, taking in what Derek had said before making eye contact with him again.

"Okay."

* * *

As Meredith walked across the parking lot, she felt an arm swing around her shoulders. She had sensed his presence before he had done that and so instantly collapsed into his side as they walked towards their individual cars.

"So, you survived your first shift as an intern," he told her, running his hand up and down her arm. "I think mom would like to hear about your amazing save, too."

"I'll call her tomorrow once I've slept properly. What I need now is a nice long hot bath because I stink and my body hurts."

"That we can do," Derek flashed her a _McDreamy smile_ before he leaned down to brush his lips against her's. "I'll meet you at home?"

"You go ahead," She told him, spotting her three fellow interns up ahead. "I'll meet you there."

* * *

 **I have never in my life written a chapter so long, what the heck? I mean, I know most of it is dialogue from the original episode, but I did try and add in some original stuff there too. I think the rest of this story is going to be surrounding the original events of the episodes, with things that need to be edited here and there (such as Addison being his wife). Overall, I'm excited to see where this concept could go, and I hope you guys are too.**

 **Let me know what you thought of this chapter, everything you say is really appreciated and if you made it this far into the chapter, well you deserve a reward, congrats! If you guys want more, I'll be happy to oblige and if you're a _Some Kind of Recovery_ fan, then look out for a new chapter tomorrow at some time!**


	2. The First Cut is the Deepest

"Do you think we should get roommates?"

Derek, who was lying next to her, sat up slightly to look at her. "Roommates? Why do we need roommates?"

"Because, Derek, look at this house. It's huge, we don't need all this space and I know a lot of people are going to be looking for places to live. Maybe we could open our house to some of them."

"You do realise that if we get roommates, we're going to have to start sneaking around? You want to be sneaking around like a pair of horny teenagers?"

"Do you have a better idea of what to do with all these rooms?" Derek didn't have an answer and stayed quiet. "That's what I thought."

"Meredith..." He trailed off, Derek really didn't think it was a good idea.

"I have pre-rounds, which I'm going to be late for if I don't get up now. Can we talk about this later?"

With a sigh, Derek leaned forward to quickly peck her lips, "I guess. I'll see you later." Once she had disappeared into the bathroom, he dropped back against the pillows. After leaving New York, where his whole family lived, Derek had expected them to be able to spend as much time together as possible, especially since she was an intern now and no time was her own. S _o much for those plans_ , he thought as he closed his eyes and tried to get a few more hours sleep.

* * *

"So, I may be looking for roommates," Meredith casually mentioned as she changed into her scrubs later that morning.

Cristina snorted next to her, "Why would you even want to do that?"

"Because, the house is so big, there's like three spare bedrooms and only two of us living there. I don't even know if I'm going to go through with it though, I have to convince Derek that we should have roommates," She rolled her eyes.

Turn back to her pile of clothes sitting on the bench, Meredith carefully placed the folded shirt and pants into the locker, hung up her coat and then placed her shoes on top. She wasn't even sure why she had chosen to wear those shoes, they always cut into her feet and left her with blisters. They weren't the nicest looking shoes in the world either but they were the only thing she could find in such a short time period.

"I thought you were keeping the whole married to an attending thing a secret?"

"We are, but I know a lot of people are looking for places to stay, and Derek and I will figure something out. He has a trailer in the middle of nowhere, we could spend some nights there and some in the house."

Cristina looked at her sceptically but kept her mouth shut. They lapsed into a silence while they waited for Dr Bailey to come in and assign them to a case.

Izzie came up from behind them George following behind her, "You're looking for roommates?" Meredith looked at her wide-eyed. "Sorry, that makes it sound like we were listening in on your conversation. Which we kind of were, I hope that doesn't make you too mad, but we both need to find somewhere else to live."

"Uh..." Meredith shot Cristina a pleading look, but Cristina just shrugged at her in return. "I'm not sure I am looking for roommates right now."

"But you just said - " George tried to intervene but Meredith cut him off.

"I said I might be getting roommates. There's a lot to think about when you get them and even if I do, we work together a hundred hours a week. You want to live together, too?" Meredith tried to get them to back off the idea, Derek would probably freak if he heard her discussing this without talking to him first.

Before either intern could respond, another resident who was greeting his interns turned to look at the four, "Dr Bailey asked me to tell you to meet her in the lobby this morning instead. I'd run now before you get stuck on skut for the rest of the week."

Taking the residents advice, Meredith grabbed the travel tray she had got on her way into work this morning. Inside, only one of the four slots was full, the coffee inside the cup still steaming. Cristina noticed this a smirked, "I see you bring bribes now, huh?"

Meredith rolled her eyes at her friend before shaking her head, blonde hair flying everywhere. George appeared by her side as they walked, pleading at her with big, wide eyes. "I need a place to live. My mom irons my scrubs. I have to get out of there."

 _Oh, Derek was so going to kill her if he found out about this._

"It's not a bribe," She directed at Cristina before looking at George. "I don't even know if I am getting roommates yet, and I don't think it's a good idea."

"I can put down last, first, and deposit." George tried to get her to change her mind on the idea.

"It's totally a bribe," Cristina laughed from in front of her.

"I can cook, and I'm an obsessive cleaner." This time it was Izzie trying to persuade her.

 _Dead. Dead. Dead._

"No. I just told you I'm not one hundred percent sure I'm getting roommates and you two are just putting me off the idea, and it's not a bribe. It's a mocha latte," She insisted as she saw Dr Bailey coming out from an office behind the nurse's desk.

The four came to a stop just in front of Dr Bailey, who wasted no time in giving out assignments, "George, you're running the code team. Meredith, take the trauma pager. Cristina, deliver the weekend labs to the patients. Izzie, you're on sutures."

"Dr Bailey, I was hoping to assist you in the O.R today. Maybe do a minor procedure, I think I'm ready," Meredith stepped forward, following Bailey up the stairs. "Mocha latte?"

Dr Bailey just stood there, looking at her, then down to the outstretched cup.

"If she gets to cut, I want to cut too." Cristina jumped in.

She was then pushed to the side by Izzie, "Yeah, me too."

"I wouldn't mind another shot, I mean if everybody else is..." George piped up but Dr Bailey quickly shut the four of them down. "Stop talking."

"Every intern wants to perform their first surgery, that's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No. Why? Because _my_ interns are whining. You know what will make me look happy? Having the code team staffed, having the trauma patients answered, having weekend abs delivered and having someone down in the pit, doing sutures."

Dr Bailey then reached forward, grabbing the mocha latte from Meredith, "No one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy I'm Mary - freakin' - Poppins."

Cristina crossed her arms over her chest, "Mocha latte my ass." She grumbled to herself.

"Why are y'all standing there? Move!"

The four interns scrambled in different directions, their earlier conversation about roommates quickly forgotten.

* * *

Meredith was waiting for the elevator to open, not looking up from her files when the doors rung, indicating they were open. Instead, she stepped into the car, startling only when a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and held her firmly in place.

After looking up and realising that it was only her husband, Meredith relaxed and sank down into his arms. They stayed like that for a few seconds before she pulled back, "Public place, at work, not allowed." She told him.

Derek stepped to the back of the car, pulling out his phone, leaning back against the railing while Meredith held her files to her chest, back to him. "Seattle has ferry boats."

"Yes, Derek." Meredith rolled her eyes at him, although he couldn't see her do so.

"I didn't know that. We've been living here three weeks, I didn't know there were ferry boats."

"Seattle is surrounded by water on three sides," She told him as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She knew the game her husband was playing.

"Hence the ferry boats." He nodded. "Now I have to like it here. I wasn't planning on liking it here. In fact, I was planning on hating it so much that I would be able to convince you that New York is the better place to be. You know that I'm genetically engineered to dislike everywhere, except Manhattan. I have a thing for ferry boats - _we_ have a thing for ferry boats."

"I'm not going to talk to you at work like you want me to."

"Did I ask you to do that?" Derek paused. "Do you want to do that?"

"I'm not playing married life at the hospital. And I'm definitely not sleeping with you at a hospital again after last time. You're my boss." Of course, the 'last time' she was referring to was an incident that happened back in New York involving an on-call room, them - naked, and the chief of surgery. Humiliating on so many levels.

"I'm your boss' boss."

"You're my teacher and my teacher's teacher. And you're my teacher."

"'I'm your sister, I'm your daughter.'" He nodded his head back and forth sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"You're sexually harassing me." She told him bluntly.

Raising his arms in almost a 'what do you mean?' pose, Derek simply said, "I'm riding an elevator."

"Look," Meredith sighed, turning around. "I'm drawing a line. The line is drawn. There's a big line." Derek could tell that she was talking mainly to herself at this point and not him.

For a moment, he thought about his response before he let a grin take over his face, "So this line? Is it imaginary or do I need to get you a marker?"

All resolve Meredith had been putting into not kissing her husband broke the moment he grinned at her. In a split second decision, she threw her files to the floor and shoved him up against the elevator wall. He picked her up and spun her around, lips still attached, the pair fiercely making out as the elevator kept dinging at each floor it reached, though neither were really listening to it.

Running his hands through her hair one last time, the pair pulled apart just as the elevator chimed louder, indicating that they were on their floor. They both glanced up to confirm it, Meredith's hand resting against Derek's chest and his arm wrapped around her back. After quickly realising their position, the pair sprung apart, Meredith dropping to her knees to collect her files with Derek helping her just as the doors slid open.

As the people that were boarding the elevator poured on, Derek watched his wife walk away down the hall, pulling his lab coat a little tighter. Just before she disappeared around the corner, he called out to her, "We'll talk later?"

And then the doors shut.

* * *

The trauma pager had rung, alerting her to a trauma in the pit and it was a welcome distraction from the thoughts of Derek swirling through her head. Ever since she left him in the elevator earlier, she kept replaying the whole scene in her head and it was getting frustrating.

There was a nurse waiting for her outside the trauma bay door when she got there, "You the surgeon?"

"Yeah."

"We got a rape victim."

Meredith knew that these cases were always difficult. The person was often fragile, closed off and scared of anyone coming too close to them. The protocol was different to a normal trauma and Meredith was honestly slightly nervous about this case.

Pushing past the people that were in her way, Meredith entered the room, taking in what was going on around her. The heart monitor was ringing loudly as she took in the sight of the severally beaten girl in front of her.

"Twenty - five - year - old female found down at the park. Status - post trauma. She came in with a GCS of six. B.P. - eighty over sixty. The exam is significant for blunt head trauma. Unequal breath sounds, right pupil is dilated and she's ready for x-ray. Ready to roll?"

As one of the nurses rattled off all the girl's stats, something caught Meredith's eye that made her blood run cold. The shoes that she never wore, the same ones she wore that morning, sat on the table next to the bed, waiting to be packed away in an evidence bag and handed over to a police officer as evidence of the crime. Obviously, they weren't her shoes, but the fact that this poor girl was wearing the same shoes that she had and this had happened to her managed to hit a nerve deep down inside Meredith.

Meredith continued to stare down at the girl for a moment, not noticing that the nurse was waiting for her to do something.

"Hey!"

Shaking herself, Meredith chided herself _good surgeons don't freeze in situations - and this is the second time you've done it!_ "Yeah."

Grabbing her pen light from her pocket, she gently pried open the girls swelling eye lid, flashing the torch in her eye to test the pupil. "Call ahead to C.T. Let them know I'm coming." She called out to no one in particular.

To someone else, she said, "Load up the portable monitor. Call respiratory for a ventilator."

"I'll get x-rays while I'm down there."

Taking one final look at the pair of shoes, Meredith shuddered before grabbing onto the side of the bed and helping to push it down to C.T.

* * *

The scan loaded up on the screen after what seemed to be forever. Leaning forward in her seat, she read the picture in front of her, deducing the damage in Jane Doe's brain along with the trauma to her lungs and what seemed to be an abnormality to her abdomen.

The lung damage could be fixed with a simple chest tube but she knew that she would be needing a craniotomy and someone to have a look at her abdomen.

Grabbing a copy of the scans, Meredith made her way back into the main room from the booth, waiting as the girl was transferred back onto her gurney. Once she was settled in place and the railings were back up, Meredith turned to one of the nurses, "Could you page Dr Shepherd and Dr Burke to come assist on this case please? Thank you." She added when the man nodded.

"I think she's going to need to go into surgery soon, so if someone could page up to the OR and see if there's one available for us?"

Another nurse agreed to do it as they passed the nurses station. As they rounded the corner, a police officer was standing there talking to the nurse that had greeted her outside the trauma room earlier. Seeing them come down the corridor, Nurse Gibbons pointed at her and the police officer turned towards her.

Once he was standing in front of her, he stuck his hand out for her to shake, before pulling his badge out, "I'm Officer Michael's, I'm the lead officer on this case. We have identified your victim as Allison Thayer. Could you give me a brief description of Miss Thayer's injuries please?" He pulled out a notebook and pen.

"Um," Meredith's mind went blank for a minute. This man was slightly intimidating. "She's defiantly going to need surgery. Miss Thayer's has received some blunt trauma to the head and abdominal damage. I'm not the surgeon specifically on this case as I'm just the surgical intern on the case but once Miss Thayer's is out of surgery, I can have her doctors give you a more thorough statement?"

Officer Michael's nodded, writing something down on a slip of paper before ripping it out of his notebook and handing it to her. "This is my number, just give me a call and I'll come back to take their statements."

Meredith nodded, folding the paper and putting it into her pocket. "Oh, do you know if there's a family to contact?"

"Afraid not." He shook his head. "Both her parents are gone and she has no other family listed."

"Oh." Her pager beeped from her waistband. "This is Allison's surgery, I have to take this."

000

Meredith met Derek and Dr Burke outside the scrub room and handed them the folder containing Allison's scans. "Twenty - five -year - old rape victim found down at the park. Was brought into the ER this morning. We ran several tests that show bleeding in the abdomen and in her brain. Also, once you're done, there's the police officer that wants a medical statement of her condition."

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Derek held the scan up to the light to get a better look. "She's going to need a craniotomy -"

He was cut off by Meredith. "Already prepared and waiting to go inside the OR Dr Shepherd."

Derek looked at her, a little surprised. "Good work, Grey." He added a little wink on the end and Meredith was thankful that Dr Burke wasn't looking at them otherwise he would probably make the connection between the two of them.

Dr Burke had finished looking at his set of scans and turned to the pair, "I'm not sure what this is but we'll figure it out when we get in there. Dr Grey, you have anywhere else you need to be?"

"No, sir."

"Perfect, you can join us once you've scrubbed in then."

000

A while later, both Derek and Burke were deep into their surgeries. Meredith couldn't help but watch intently as Derek moved around Allison's open brain. She watched his every movement, the way he flashed the scrub nurse a smile every now and then once he had received the equipment he needed. He had always been that way, charming his way into everyone's good books.

"She's going to spend a long time in recovery and rehab." Derek muttered quietly, but in the quiet OR, everyone seemed to hear it.

There were a couple interns sitting in the gallery, watching her with envy as she had managed to scrub in on two major procedures now with Dr Shepherd while the majority of them hadn't even managed to see the inside of an OR since their tour on their first morning.

"If she survives." Burke pointed out.

"What is she, like five - two, one - hundred pounds?" Derek asked, taking his eyes off the girl's brain to glance at the rest of her for a moment. "She's breathing after what this guy did? Catch the guy, they should castrate him."

"See how shredded her hands are? She tried to fight back?"

"She tried to?" Derek scoffed. "The rape kit came back negative. She kicked his ass." From her position, Meredith could see Derek smiling underneath his surgical mask.

Not pulling back from what he was doing, Dr Burke glanced around the OR, "So, we have a warrior among us, huh?"

Meredith then remembered that she hadn't told them the girls name. After everything she had been through, she at least deserved to be called by her name and not Jane Doe, or anything else for that matter.

"Allison."

Many eyes turned towards her, looking at her questioningly. Who was she to speak up inside the OR that she had no power in?

"Her... Her name is Allison."

The eyes turned away from her again but Derek's stayed trained on her for a moment more. "Allison." He repeated and nodded in her direction, glancing down at the girl once more and then back to the task at hand.

Dr Burke seemed to be fiddling with something inside Allison's open abdomen. "I think I may have found the cause of our rupture. Large haemostat." He asked for.

Trying to get a better view, Meredith perched herself up on her toes and completely missed the way Derek smiled at her actions. After a couple more mutters, Dr Burke pulled out the object that was now wedged onto his instrument.

"What is this? Does anyone know what this is?" He held the object up so that everyone in the room could see it. In response, all he got was negative mutters.

Meredith, on the other hand, knew exactly what it was. "Oh my god." She was amazed.

"What? Spit it out, Grey."

"She bit it off."

"Bit what off?"

Derek watched his wife from his position at the opposite end of the table. She seemed to be amazed by something but Dr Burke was having a hard time getting it out of her. The object was rather damaged, making it hard to recognise, yet Meredith had somehow managed to do so.

She then proceeded to stutter, trying to figure out a way to explain without making every man in the OR cringe. "That's his..." Oh boy. "...Penis."

All around her, she could hear the men groan in pain at the idea of it. Even Derek looked mortified at the top of the surgical table. She had to stifle a laugh at the look on his face when she announced what it was.

Dr Burke looked horrified at the idea, quickly throwing the instrument into the dish, eyes wide.

"She bit off his... his penis." She repeated again.

* * *

"Ouch." Derek shook his head at the thought of what his wife had said the object was in the OR. The thought made him shudder.

"If she can fight the infection, she'll be fine."

"It depends on whether or not she wakes up in the next seventy - two hours."

Shaking his hands-free of excess water, Derek turned to grab a towel. "Wes should get a drink. You can tell me the long story of what makes a hot shot doc leave the big apple for Seattle."

"Short story, actually. Your Chief of surgery made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Richard asked you to come?" Dr Burke sounded shocked by the revelation.

Derek was curious. "Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, nothing."

Narrowing his eyes a little, Derek held the chart in his arms a little tighter, "See you later."

Dr Burke was a character that he didn't quite understand. There wasn't much of a story as to why he and Meredith moved to Seattle, just that he was offered the position of Chief and a nice pay check that he couldn't refuse.

000

Maybe a little too forcefully, Meredith dropped the cooler onto the nurse's station. George looked up from the charts he was filling out to see what she was doing. "What's that?"

"Don't ask, you don't want to know."

"I do wanna know. Really."

"You really wanna know?" Meredith looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He nodded. "It's a severed penis."

George visible jerked backwards, "Ok. I really didn't want to know."

From inside the office behind the nurse's station, Meredith could hear Cristina and a voice she vaguely recognised talking. Glancing up, she saw the man who had called her a nurse the other day.

"Why are you with him?" She asked, eyeing the man who's name she didn't know a little. His presence was annoying.

"Because Alex here is the new member of our merry little group." Cristina dismissed him with a shrug. "And I'm being forced to babysit him."

"It's not being forced if you love it, baby." He commented from behind her but quickly shut up when he saw the glare that Cristina was giving him.

Meredith wasn't in the mood to deal with him and his snarky comments. "Misdiagnose any more patients today?" She snarked.

"Not at all, Nurse." He smirked at her, trying to see if he could push any buttons.

The fact that she was being forced to have custody of the damned severed penis was really making her mood turn sour, but somehow, Meredith managed to keep her mouth shut and not tempt the situation any further.

"Meredith's carrying a penis around in a jar." George announced, oblivious to the tension surrounding the other three interns. Alex had walked off down the hallway towards God knows what.

"Oh, from the rape surgery?" It seemed to have peaked Cristina's interest.

"Yeah," She didn't look up from her work. "And it's not a jar. It's a cooler."

Cristina opened the lid a little and glanced in. After a moment, she commented, "Talk about taking a bite out of crime." Before walking off.

* * *

The cooler swung from her wrist as she tried to balance her food in the other hand. The day wasn't even half way over yet and she was already ready to knock her head off the wall.

Izzie and George had been pestering her all throughout their shift about moving in with her, buying her coffee and treats - not that she was complaining about this two items, _more coffee I say_ \- and trying to sell themselves to her.

She knew they wouldn't stop questioning her about it until they got their answer, which meant she needed to talk to Derek about it _again_ and she needed to make sure he was in the best of moods to make sure the conversation would not end in tension between the two.

Someone came to walk along side her, the sound of chuckling causing her to look. Derek was walking along side her, a salad and bottle of water in his hands. Neither one said anything to the other, just continuing to walk towards the exit.

Once outside the cafeteria doors, Derek looked down at the cooler in her hands questioningly. "Why have you still got that thing? Didn't you hand it over to police custody yet?"

"I was supposed to," Meredith huffed. "But apparently, they can't come for it until later and there's a chain of custody rule or something. So now I have custody of a penis."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Derek trailed off, watching her in amusement as she huffed and puffed. She really was adorable when she was angry.

"Are you coming to my office?" He asked as they continued to head in the same direction.

They rounded the final corner. "Where do you think I'm going?"

Seeing as Meredith was carrying the cooler and her lunch, Derek swung the door open. "After you, m'lady." He jokingly bowed slightly at her, causing her to giggle.

"Why thank you."

Derek made his way over to the desk, putting his food on the desk before turning to see what Meredith was going to do. She glanced at him for a minute before following in his footsteps. Instead of grabbing another chair to sit in, however, she dropped herself down into his lap, placing the cooler down onto the desk and opening up her sandwich, picking up one-half before taking a bite.

Derek was watching her amused from his position under her, "Go ahead and sit right down." Her only response was to grin in response as Derek opened up his salad container.

The pair had gotten to the point in their relationship long ago where they could sit in silence together and yet still have it not be awkward. They continued to eat, Derek working around Meredith on the computer, Meredith watching him silently.

After a while, it began to get boring for Meredith and so she began to squirm a little, distracting Derek from his work. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Meredith told him, fiddling with her watch a little but not stopping her movements. "I'm just bored."

He ran his hand along her side before squeezing her a little. "I'm sure there are plenty of good cases floating around the hospital waiting for you to steal if you want to go."

"It's not that."

Now, all his attention was focused on her. "Well, what is it?"

"Uh..."

 _It can't be anything good,_ Derek thought to himself. "Meredith."

"Damn it." She cursed to herself. Whenever he used that tone, she was always known to crack and spill whatever was on her mind. "So, you know how we discussed possibly having roommates?"

"You did not," He sighed to himself. Derek honestly should have seen it coming. She liked to take in strays.

Meredith shifted around slightly to look at him, her eyes sparkling a little. "I was talking to about it with Cristina and George and Izzie were listening to our conversation. Now they want to move into my house but it's not just my house, it's our house so I couldn't tell them yes because that's not fair to you. You deserve to have a say in who lives in our house - that is even if you want people living with us. It's just that they've been trying to bribe me all day to get me to say yes, and Derek _they're so persistent._ They keep going on and on about how they need a place of their own and how George's mother _irons his scrubs_. If I hear those excuses one more time, I think my head might explode, so _can we please talk about this -_ "

Derek's lips against her's cut her off in the middle of her sentence. They stayed like that for a moment, Derek allowing Meredith to get over the initial surprise and knew that had happened when she finally kissed him back.

They separated and Derek flashed her a smile. "You're cute when you ramble."

"I am not." She blew out a breath, causing the bangs on her forehead to ruffle a little.

He pecked her on the lips. "Whatever you say." She had no response to that. "Now, if you want roommates, then tell them they can stay with us."

Meredith looked up at him, shocked. Had he actually just agreed to something with no argument? "What? Really?"

"Sure, I mean, they need it. I remember what it was like to be an intern and how hard it was to find somewhere to live." He smiled at her slightly but saw the uncertainty in her eyes. "I'm serious, Meredith. They can live with us if you want. They're your friends." He paused and looked down at her. "They are your friends right?"

"Huh? Yeah, they are my friends." She confirmed quickly. "But - I mean - We're not ready for people to know we're married yet - _I'm not ready for people to know we're married yet._ If they live with us then they are going to know about us. Unless we sneak around again but seriously Derek? You want to sneak around again?"

"Well, the sneaking around bit could be pretty fun, hot even. Think of the thrill. How long can we go sneaking around before we get caught?" He waggled an eyebrow at her, smirking a little.

She giggled slightly, hitting him on the arm. "Mind out of the gutter, Der. But, if you're sure you're okay with this, I guess they can move in." Her pager bleeped from its position on the desk. "And that would be the trauma pager again. I've got to go."

Meredith got up and grabbed the cooler. Before she could make it too far away from Derek, he reached out an arm and pulled her back, "You forgot something." He told her before kissing her again, longer than the previous time.

Once they pulled back, he grinned at her as she turned and made her way towards the door, a spring in her step compared to when they had walked together earlier.

He sat there a moment. Was having roommates a good idea? He wanted Meredith all to himself but now they were going to lose privacy and have to sneak around their home?

Derek sighed. Only time would tell, he supposed.

* * *

Her husband was MIA. _Missing in action_.

She had been looking for him for the last ten minutes, wanting to talk to him before he went home for the night. That was a perk of being an attending, they got to work sensible hours whereas interns practically lived at the hospital.

Finally, she was wandering the halls of the ICU, just in case he was there checking on a patient. Meredith stumbled upon Allison's room and looked at her through the window for a minute. She had to admit, she did look a lot better than when she was first brought in but her body was still heavily bandaged.

She watched her for a moment before she heard Derek come up behind her. "Man, I've called every hospital n the county. I don't know. Sooner or later, the guy that did this is going to seek medical attention. When he does, that penis you're carrying around is gonna nail him." He had walked past her at that point, moving to check Allison's pupils with his penlight. "Do you know where her family is?"

"She has no family." Meredith told him, her voice quieter than usual. "Both her parents are dead. No siblings. She just moved to Seattle three weeks ago. Welcome to the city."

"Meredith, what's wrong?" Derek asked, concern shining in his eyes.

After a moment, Meredith finally blurted out, "She has my shoes." Derek looked at her, obviously confused so she continued. "The shoes I wore today? The ones I never wear because they make my feet hurt a lot. She was wearing them. Allison was wearing them. And she only just moved to the city three weeks ago - _just like us._ She has no family, just like..."

She trailed off and Derek's confusion turned to one of sympathy and she saw a little hurt there. "Mere... You know my family love you just like you are one of theirs. My mother loves you like you are one of her own."

"I know..." She trailed off. "I'm still not used to it, even after seven years. It's weird Derek. I went from absolutely no one to fourteen nieces and four sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws and a mother. It takes a lot to get used to."

He smiled at her in understanding, wanting to hug her but knowing that he couldn't.

000

 _We got him!_ Meredith text Derek after she got out of surgery with the would - be - rapist.

Her phone buzzed a moment later. _That's great!_ Was his response.

 _It is. He's in police custody right now. Gonna nap in an on - call room. Love you._

 _Love you too,_ Came through a minute later.

Smiling, she made her way towards the on - call room, the cooler still swinging from her hand. Apparently, they couldn't send a crime scene officer down until the morning. Looks like she was spending the night with the penis then.

She could almost hear the comment Alex would make.

* * *

Derek was once again standing outside Allison's room when Meredith came up next to him. They stood side by side, watching for a moment.

"There's this baby up in the nursery." She began. "He's brand new. No ones neglected him or damaged him yet. How do we get from there to here? She's wearing my shoes and someones beat the crap out of her. And she's got nobody."

Without warning, Allison's alarms began to beep widely, startling both of them. Slamming her hand on the code blue button. Behind her, she could hear Derek yelling.

* * *

 _She had been standing outside the nursery, George and Izzie behind her along with Cristina. Meredith decided to break the news. "Okay, fine, George and Izzie, you can move in."_

 _"Yes!"_

 _"I can't believe you caved!"_

 _"Thank you." George came up behind her, hugging her briefly. Meredith smiled to herself, today was looking better by the minute._

000

Meredith could see Derek waiting up ahead for an elevator. She smiled at him and he smiled back. He flipped his phone shut and turned his full attention to her.

"I stole a case from peds and I turned out to be right. I saved a babies life." She beamed at him.

"I'm so proud of you," He told her, his eyes flashing with pride. "Allison woke up." Derek informed her.

 _Today was a good day._

* * *

 **There's chapter two for you! Sorry it took so long to write but these chapters are going to take longer because of the length. I may write another chapter of Some Kind of Recovery this weekend but I'm not going to promise it! If you could, maybe leave your thoughts of this chapter? You guys went nuts over chapter one so thankyou!**


	3. Winning a Battle, Losing the War

The rain hitting against the bedroom window managed to lull Meredith in and out of sleep. There was something she found soothing about the rain hitting the window that she loved and the warmth that surrounded her didn't help the matter that she had to get ready for work soon.

The space behind her, that when she had fallen asleep was occupied by her husband, was empty and cold. She missed the warm body that would usually provide her with heat, yet at the same time, the extra blanket was a bonus.

Somehow, her roommates hadn't found out about her marriage to Derek yet, which was some miracle of its own.

She remembered giggling about it two nights ago, telling Derek how it was kind of like they were teenagers, how fun it was to sneak around and make sure that no one found out about them.

The bed behind her had been empty for several hours at that point. When a pager had sounded at the earlier hours of the morning, Meredith had rolled over to grab hers, expecting to see a message flashing across the screen but instead found that it was blank.

It had been Derek's pager waking them, a rare occurrence for someone of Derek's status, interns were usually called in at the ungodly hours. AMVC victim had been brought in with severe head trauma, one that their on-call neurosurgeon decided she wasn't capable of handling alone seeing as she was only a fourth-year resident.

And so, Derek had crawled out of bed, pulling on a more appropriate shirt than his ratty sleeping t-shirt and bottoms that were on their last legs, pressed a soft kiss to Meredith's forehead and slipped out of the house as quietly as possible.

Now, as she lay there in her cocoon of blankets, Meredith could feel someone's eyes staring at her. Derek had a habit of watching her sleep, which had its ability to be cute or to be weird. However, the fact that Derek was not home managed to wiggle it's way to the front of Meredith's brain, causing blue eyes to snap open.

"George's room is bigger than mine."

Izzie was leaning over her bed, watching her sleep with a mug of coffee in her hand. The scream that Meredith had let loose didn't even seem to make her flinch, almost as if she was expecting it. The smaller blonde's hand flew to her chest, right over her heart as she tried to slow her racing heart. _Why did I have to pick the freaky roommates? And what if Derek had still been here? I think we need a knocking rule._

Once her heart rate was back to normal, Meredith threw the covers off her body with a roll of the eyes at Izzie's lack of caring. As she stood and shot the other blonde doctor a glare, she failed to notice the pillow that had managed to make its way onto the floor, tripping over it and landing in a heap on the floor.

Pain shot through her ankle for a moment before it faded. Even after the pain was gone, Meredith didn't make a move to get up off the floor, instead letting the cold hardwood cool her skin. Izzie still stood behind her, not even making a move to see if she was okay, instead taking a sip from her mug once again. After a couple more seconds, Meredith shoved her hair back into place and out of her line of sight using both hands to push herself upright and continue making her way down to the garage.

After her first step, it was evident that she'd twisted her ankle, limping each time she put pressure on her left foot.

Izzie was still following her, still complaining about George behind her, "I have more clothes, I should have the bigger room." Her ankle hurt, she was already running late thanks to the rain and blanket issue, she didn't need to deal with her roommate's constant bickering too.

Besides, George had gotten to the house first, meaning he got the first pick of which room he wanted. And that just so happened to be the bigger room.

As she rounded the corner, George was standing protectively in front of his door, as if Izzie was going to take it from him the minute he walked away from it. She vaguely heard him shout something along the lines of him getting there first and that he could get whatever room he wanted.

"It's Meredith's house, she should get to decide," Izzie called out from behind her, two sets of footsteps following her down the stairs. _I really don't want to._

They continued to follow her down to through the garage door as she went to get her underwear and clothes from the baskets that were sat on top of the washing machines from the previous night. _Derek must have grabbed them before he_ _left that morning_. Behind her, she could hear the pair arguing about inches, which then turned into something about boxes and her mother's surgery tapes. The day did not need to start out with her mother being brought into it too.

Coming to the top of the stairs, the bathroom was just in sight and George and Izzie had still not left her alone yet. Shoving the door open, the room that would give her some privacy from her roommates was within her grasp. She slammed the door shut behind her before the exhaustion hit her again. Remembering that Izzie had been drinking coffee and not caring that Izzie had been drinking the coffee, Meredith re-opened the door, grabbing the mug from the blonde's hand and shut the door behind her again, placing a wooden barrier between the two of them.

* * *

Dead Baby Bike Race Day.

Natural selection indeed.

Her fellow interns, who clearly hadn't seen anything like this before (she, of course, had seen worse traumas than what this race would bring due to practically living in hospitals most of her life while her mother was practicing and then once again while Derek was finishing up his residency) were babbling excitedly about all the cases they were going to get. Meredith herself was excited about actually handling the traumas for herself for a change. After tying up the back of her trauma gown, she pushed her way through the doorway, coming face to face with beds full of people with varying degrees of injuries.

Cristina stepped up beside her, grinning from ear to ear at the sight, "It's like candy… but with blood!" The comment caused her to giggle slightly as a man caught her eye across the room.

"Oo. I'll take that one." Her eyes were fixed on the spikes that were sticking out of his side. This case practically screamed surgery at her. Said the man was sitting up on the trauma bed, looking around as if him being there was just an inconvenience to him, that the spikes were simply a minor scrape on the knee. Meredith wanted this case. She wanted it now.

Alex replaced Cristina next to her, the latter having run off fighting with Izzie over a case that seemed to be a TBI. He had seemed to spot the same man as her and before Meredith could comprehend what was really happening, she was shoving Alex out of the way to reach the bed before he could.

* * *

He'd just pulled the spikes out of the man's side leaving her with him to stitch him up. That left Meredith half convinced Alex had lost his mind for not taking the precautions and the other man had downed a bottle of something really strong before getting on his bike that morning for not even flinching as the spikes were removed from his skin.

Meredith pulled out her suture kit as the man began to flirt with her each time she ignored them and instead going on to think about how much she wanted her husband to walk through that door right at that very minute.

"You've got a nice touch." He complimented her for the God-knows how many time. How she wanted to pull the rings out from under her scrub top. "And by the way, you are a rocking babe."

With an eyebrow raised and a small grin playing on her face, she asked him, "Seriously, do you actually think you have a shot here?"

"I think I've got a shot anywhere."

The man was stupid enough to be refusing a CT, he could have been bleeding internally for all she knew but she couldn't force him into going and so was stuck having him sign an AMA form instead.

As she handed the form over to him, he leant in close to her as he somehow managed to sign his name without looking, "Darling, I will do anything you want me to."

Meredith stared blankly at him, shaking her head as some of the comments her husband had made in the past came to mind, "What is it, with you guys and your need to dirty everything up?" She could have sworn men had one thing and one thing only constantly on their minds.

While she was engaged in her conversation with the frustrating bike racer, Viper as she had learnt when taking his personal information, she failed to notice her husband coming to stand in front of the trauma room window, watching her as she finished up with her patient. He'd been looking for her for a while, not having seen her since he left to tend to the man with the brain injury, who had thankfully survived the crash.

Derek watched the conversation between the two. By the look of things, his wife had just finished up with the man, one of those injured in the bike race I what he was wearing was any indication. The man rose from the bed, adjusting his shirt and making his way to the exam room door before he spun back around and grabbed Meredith by the back of the head, crashing their lips together in a rough kiss. Jealousy flared from almost nothing inside of Derek as he watched this man press his lips against Meredith's.

The man finally pulled back as Meredith raised a hand, looking completely stunned as the cyclist gave her a wink and turned to walk out of the door, completely oblivious to the man in navy blue scrubs standing in the doorway.

Meredith shouted something that was muffled by the walls at the retreating man's back before turning around, pausing with a dazed look on her face. It lasted no more than four seconds before she snapped back to reality and began to make a move on stripping the bed sheets, ready for the next patient.

Just as she finished up with the task she caught something out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Derek standing there, watching her every move with his arms crossed over his chest.

He moved lightly to the left and opened the door, letting himself in. "So, you make-out patients now?" His voice was flat as he entered the trauma room and shut the door behind him. Despite his serious manner, Meredith knew him well enough to know that he was just joking around with her.

Deciding to push the buttons, she asked him with a shrug, "What? Are you jealous?"

"I don't get jealous." He told her firmly, his face twitching, the tell-tale sign that he was lying to her. Even though they were joking, she couldn't help the smile that graced her face for a moment at the thought of him still getting jealous, even after eight years of marriage.

"You know I didn't kiss him, right?" She asked as she filled out the rest of the necessary form. "You know you're my husband? Or do I need to keep reminding you of that? Our age finally catching up?"

"Of course I know that you think I don't know that? I know that very, _very_ well." Men! He was just proving her point. "You know I almost died today? I came this close." He held up to fingers with a minimal gap between them. "How'd you feel if I died? You've spent the last eight years with me, you wouldn't know what to do without me."

"Aww," Meredith pinched his cheek and shook it slightly, "Get over yourself. I'd find someone less clingy, that's what I'd do. You don't have to worry that pretty little head of yours about that."

With that, she grabbed her clipboard and stalked out of the trauma room, leaving Derek to stand in the exam room by himself, trying and failing to come up with a response to her comment.

* * *

Izzie had roped her into this. That's what she kept telling herself as she sat there, watching the surgery she knew shouldn't be happening. Meredith had no idea why she decided to transfuse the man but she had done it anyway and she knew that Derek would probably not be too impressed with her deciding to step in on a case she wasn't involved in. But know, they were sitting in the gallery watching as Alex assisted (he hadn't been involved with this case until he heard that there was an open heart surgery involved) on brain dead man's heart surgery.

* * *

Her pager had run out of battery just as her shift ended and so she made her way to the intern locker room to change it, meaning she missed the end of the surgery. It was the end of her shift anyway and she needed to change out of her scrubs. All she wanted to do was curl up in her rather large bed with her husband and sleep for who knows how long. The rough start she'd had that morning had set her up for a not so good day.

Just as Meredith had finished swapping the batteries over, Alex burst through the door with a great big grin on his face, "God, I smell good! You know what it is? It's the smell of open heart surgery. It's awesome. It is awesome." This man had been nothing but an ass since the moment he called her a nurse and it was really shining through today. "You gotta smell me," Alex said as he walked towards Meredith, arms raised as he shoved his chest forward.

"I don't want to smell you." She told him, not even bothering to turn towards him, instead fiddling with nothing in her locker, waiting for him to leave her alone. Instead, she felt his arms wrap around one of her shoulders, coming to rest on the edge of her locker and saw the other rest on the locker door beside her, cornering her in, his chest pressed against her back, "Oh, yes you do."

Without much warning, she spun around in the small space, grabbing Alex by the collar and all but threw him back against his own. "You have got to be kidding me! I have more important things to deal with than you. I have roommates that are driving me absolutely insane and won't stop arguing over who gets which room. I have a husband who has turned very needy and I have a mother who is causing me issues. So I don't have time for your frat-boy-bitch problems. Take credit for your saves and everyone else's, I don't care. Just stay outta my face." Alex gave a fake yawn and to stop herself from slapping him across the face, instead, she shoved him back against the lockers with a fair amount of force.

Vaguely, Meredith heard the locker room door open but was too busy restraining herself from hurting Alex even more that she was already. Turning her head to the right, her icy blue eyes met Derek's and she finally let Alex go, storming back to grab the items she threw in when she shoved him.

Alex too noticed Derek's presence and held his hands up as a sign of surrender and innocence, "She attacked me." Derek, however, knew his wife better than that and knew that the intern must have done something to majorly piss her off.

Like a flash of light, Meredith was back across the locker room and ready to grab Alex by the collar again, the later not even flinching at the speed blonde was coming towards him. "Meredith! Meredith!" She heard her husband call out to her as he planted both hands on her shoulders, steering her away from her would be victim, letting her take a few calming breaths.

Derek turned towards the other man, making sure to keep Meredith behind him, "You might want to leave before I change my mind and let her beat you to a pulp with her tiny, ineffectual fists." After guiding Alex out of the locker room by the arm and shoving the door shut with an effective bang, Derek turned back to Meredith as she began shoving her belongings into her purse.

When she made eye contact with him again, he noticed that her eyes were becoming slightly glassy. "What?" He asked softly.

"Nothing." She began in reply before she seemed to remember who she was talking to as her husband gave her a short nod of encouragement, "It's just…" Another pause. "Nothing." She finally settled on.

With no one else in the locker room with them, Meredith was safe to step forward and press her face into Derek's chest, just breathing in his scent which made her relax almost instantly. His arms came to wrap around her in reassurance, holding her as closely as possible to him.

For so long, she had gotten used to not talking about feelings with anyone and so had the tendency, after all the years she had known Derek, to shut him out sometimes. This time, however, he seemed to understand that she was going to open up to him about what was bothering her at some point, just not in the middle of the very public locker room.

As if remembering that she was in the locker room, where any intern could walk in at any moment, Meredith pulled back from Derek. "Can we go home now?" She asked him, but he was already digging his keys out of his pocket. Since they'd driven in separately that morning, it meant that they'd have to drive home separately too.

* * *

She and Derek pulled up outside their house just moments after each other, Meredith parking the jeep in the driveway next to George's car and Derek parking his car on the street just outside the house. As she climbed out of her car, Derek came to a stop next to her, his hand extended towards her slightly, which she took without a second thought.

Making their way up to the house, Meredith sighed in relief when the warmth of her home hit her full in the face she opened the door. She silently thanked that she had forgotten to turn the heating off that morning as she was leaving for work.

Izzie and George were both on-call at the hospital that night and so they didn't have to worry about keeping themselves hidden for the night, and so once Meredith had slipped her coat off and hung it up in the closet, she turned towards her husband leaning up so their lips were in line with each other and then kissed him.

He responded eagerly, kissing her harder. The pair stayed like that for a moment before pulling away from each other. "I like it much better than when your roommates are here," Derek told her with a small smirk. "We'd get to do that a lot more if you didn't have those roommates of yours living here."

"I know," She slumped against him. "But they needed somewhere to stay and they were the best candidates. The rest were all too weird. Besides, I missed having someone living here. I've been living around crowds of people since I was seventeen. I get lonely if they house is quiet."

He was giving her an odd look, his eyes sparkling the way she loved as he watched her for a moment. "What?" Meredith asked him, a stray piece of hair coming to rest in front of her face.

"You are the most caring person I know." His smile grew and his eyes twinkled a little more. "Even after what you went through and most would probably say you shouldn't have turned out the way you have, you are amazing."

Even though he had been giving her compliments like that for years now, they still never failed to make her blush each time, make something warm and fuzzy rise inside of her. Instead of responding verbally, she chose to respond with another kiss, which he happily complied with.

"Now, why don't you go and take a nice warm bath, and I will get on the phone and order something for us to eat?" He suggested. A warm bath did sound amazing right at that moment and who was she to say no to some take out?

A smile graced her features as she made her way up the stairs. Halfway up, she called over her shoulder, "And no Chinese food!"

As he picked up the wireless home phone from its stand, he chuckled, "I know, Mer. Ten years, remember?"

* * *

The hot bath had done her aching muscles wonders. The only reason she had gotten out of it and not fallen asleep was because she heard the doorbell ring downstairs and assumed that food had come.

Now, she was clad in her Dartmouth t-shirt and a pair of Derek's plaid pyjama bottoms, sitting four steps from the bottom watching as her husband paid the delivery man. She still had no idea what he'd order but when he turned around, pizza box in hand, she gasped gleefully. "Pizza?" In response, he shook the box, watching her excitement build by the second. "Chicken?"

"What other kind of pizza would I get?" He asked her sarcastically, waving the hand that was not holding the pizza in the air. "It would be a crime to get anything else!"

Lunging forward off the steps, Meredith let out a short squeal as she made a grab for the pizza box. Opening it, she grabbed a piece and took a bite out of it. "Good, I love you." She mumbled around the mouthful of pizza.

"I love you too," Derek tried reaching for a slice of pizza but Meredith's hand quickly swatted his away from it. "You were talking to me… right?" He asked, watching as she seemed to make the slice of pizza disappear in a matter of seconds.

After she had swallowed the food in her mouth, Meredith turned to him, "What? Oh, yeah, I guess I love you too." She shrugged.

The pair moved into the living room, Meredith placing the box onto the coffee table that in the middle of the room, grabbing a second slice in the process.

The pair sat in silence for a few moments, just enjoying each other's company before Derek decided to approach the incident from earlier again.

"So, are you going to tell me what that thing with Alex was about or are you going to leave me to find out about it?"

He could tell from the way she was hesitating to answer that she didn't want to talk about it but Derek also knew from experience that with Meredith you needed to push her to talk or she would let things build up to the extreme.

"It's just… he's a bit of an ass." Was all she offered him, causing Derek to raise an eyebrow in response.

He hummed a little. "And that justifies trying to beat him to a pulp with your tiny ineffectual fists?"

Meredith was silent and the response she wanted to give was obviously along the lines of _'shut up or I will show you just how ineffectual these fists are'_. "He called me a nurse during our first shift because I challenged his diagnosis. And he stole our brain guys surgery today. After which, he tried to make me smell him and I kinda just snapped."

"I think it's more than that, Mer." Derek offered up, waiting to see if she was going to say anything else.

"There is more, I guess." A breath. "George and Izzie seem nice enough but I really regret inviting them to live here. I know that I said I was lonely in such an empty house but my god, I just want to spend my time with you and no nosy roommates hanging around. But I know exactly what they're going to say if they find out that we're married and I don't want them to think that. Because it's not the truth and I'm not married to you just to get a leg up. I'm pretty sure they already hate me enough because of the Ellis Grey thing."

Meredith took another pause, seemingly having ended her rant but Derek knew to give her a moment to collect her rambling. "And I miss home _so much_. I miss your mother, I miss Amelia, I miss Lizzie, I miss Kathleen, I miss Mark, I miss Addison and dear lord I even miss Nancy a little bit. This is all so different to New York and being in Med School." With a pout, she turned from her position leaning against Derek to face him. "Why did you let me go through with this internship? Why didn't you stop me?"

Brushing a stray hair out of her face, Derek smiled affectionately at her, "I let you go through with this internship because I know that one day, you're going to be even better than your mother. And I know you miss everyone back home, but we can always call them and you know that they are all going to be dropping in and out of here all the time. You'll get to the point that you don't want to see them anymore."

Meredith seemed to accept what Derek was saying, lying back against him with a content sigh, her eyes falling shut briefly.

His hand began to smooth the hair in the front of her head back, leading to her falling asleep in a matter of moments., the previously loved pizza lying untouched on the table.

Once Derek was sure she was well and truly asleep, he moved her head from his arm, standing and moving into position to allow him to pick her up with ease. The blonde moaned a little in her sleep but quickly stilled as he began to make his way up the stairs.

* * *

The following day, Meredith was back at the hospital for a forty-eight-hour shift. She'd hated the fact that she'd had to get up early that morning while her husband had gotten to stay in bed, which then followed a mild rambling session in her mind about how it was unfair that attending's didn't have to pull the same sort of shift patterns as interns and residents.

As she pulled her fresh scrub top over her head, she felt a presence behind her and turned to see Alex standing against the opposite wall of lockers. "What do you want? Round two?"

He smirked at her in response, just watching her as she continued to get ready for her shift. After the incident yesterday, he was impressed with the amount of strength she had in her. For such a tiny thing, the girl could really throw her fair bit of weight.

Meredith knew he was still staring at her and once she was finished getting dressed, she turned to face him fully, one hand coming to rest on her hip, "Why do you keep staring at me?"

Alex seemed to be thinking for a moment before he responded. "I wanted to say I was impressed yesterday. Didn't expect you to be capable of such things." He was trying to push her buttons and wined her up but she wasn't going to let it happen.

"Well, clearly someone needs to keep you in shape." Was all she responded with. This man was going to cause her problems throughout her residency, she could already tell.

"Also," Alex added after a moment of silence. "George is going to be devastated."

Meredith blinked. George? "George?"

"Well, yeah. He's got some sort of crush on you. In fact, I'm pretty sure the dudes in love with you. Shame for him though."

"Alex, I really am not following this conversation, so please make it clear what you're talking about before I walk out of this locker room and leave you to talk bullshit to yourself." She snapped at him.

"You're married, aren't you? Or was that some random rambling yesterday? 'I have a clingy husband?'"

* * *

 **Long time no update, hey? Sorry 'bout that. But I got a new computer and got back into Grey's with even more vengeance and I wanted to write more stories so here I am. I have like two other fics in mind too but I don't want to start another without attempting to finish this one. So, if any of my previous readers are still with me, hey! Any new readers, let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you want to see more in the future! Adio** **s amigos!**


	4. No Mans Land

Derek was still in bed when she had crawled out of it twenty minutes ago, leaving him in favouring of sorting through her mother's latest medical expenses. Her mind began to drift halfway through writing out the latest check for the care home, as she began thinking about why exactly she was doing these things for her mother.

Her mother had resented her since the day she was born. No, scratch that. The woman had hated her daughter the moment she found out about her.

Ellis Grey was all about the surgery and nothing else, a child to her was a simple distraction, too needy.

Of course, Thatcher had found out about the pregnancy before she could do anything and then there was a baby on the way.

For the first five years of her life, Meredith had been dumped in Thatcher's care. ( _He was never going to be called 'dad' or even 'father', the man as neither of those_ , she thought to herself.) And when Thatcher had been called into his place of work, she'd been dumped on Adele and Richard Webber.

That one lasted long – _ha ha_ – when Adele and Thatcher had both found out about the affair that was going on between their partners. It just seemed cruel to ask her to babysit the child of her husband's mistress.

And then when she was five, everything she had known was ripped out from underneath her, everything familiar, everything stable – that one deserved another 'ha-ha' because her life was anything but stable when she was five but it was familiar and comforting and _she knew what was going on in her life then_ – and she was dropped into a new place with people she didn't know and it had freaked her out to the point of not talking for two weeks.

Of course, her mother didn't notice too much, she was too busy settling into her new life at Mount Sinai, more often than not dumping Meredith with a nanny that could care less about her and more so about the big bucks that they were raking in as a reward for working with Ellis Grey's child.

For the following ten years, her life had been pretty isolated, never really bothering to make herself too many friends and instead throwing herself into her school work, if anything to distract herself from her mother.

When she was fifteen, she had met Amelia Shepherd. The details were kind of fuzzy at that point but it had been 1993 and she had just started Sophomore year of high school. Her mother had been pulled into a surgery just as she was supposed to pick Meredith up and had had an intern answer her call, relaying the news and telling her to walk home. Of course, that was before the thunderstorm hit.

And to make matters worse, just as she was about to step out onto the street, a car had come out of nowhere, straight through the rather large puddle that had formed, soaking her straight through her coat and sweater she had been wearing.

A frustrated groan later, another car had come down the street and Meredith had braced herself for the impact of water but it never came.

Instead, the black car had pulled to a stop in front of her, the window rolling down to reveal a young woman, no older than twenty with dark hair and blue eyes.

"Hey, are you ok?" She'd asked, eyeing up Meredith.

Meredith had squinted a little, cursing herself for forgetting her glasses that morning and the rain for not making anything easier. The woman was familiar, but she couldn't put a name to the face. "As good as I can be," She'd shrugged in response, cautiously taking a step back from the car just in case this woman she recognised but couldn't name tried to pull anything funny on her. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Not really, we've met a couple times. I'm Amelia Shepherd. You live across the street from us I think. I'm their youngest daughter." The women had offered up and things slowly began to connect in the younger blonde's mind. The Shepherd's had lived across the street from her ever since she moved to New York. There had been five of them at the time of her moving, the eldest being twenty-nine and the youngest being ten. She'd seen them all in passing as they entered in and out of the family home but she'd never bonded with the children, no matter how much fun she would have thought being friends with Amelia would have been.

"No offence, but what are you doing in this district? Aren't you a little young to have a child school age?" Meredith asked and watched as the older woman laughed in response.

"Way too young, don't worry about that. I'm in Med school but I'm home for a bit. I'm just picking up my nephew for my sister." Amelia had motioned to the back of the car where she presumed the boy was sitting. "Do you have a lift home?" She'd asked after a beat.

"I did." Meredith had sighed. "And then she decided that surgery was more important and left me to walk in this."

Amelia didn't even pause to think before she'd offered her a ride home, dripping clothes and all. Meredith had accepted the ride cautiously, not overly trusting of the blonde just at that moment but it was going to be better than continuing for the next mile in the storm.

After that moment, Amelia and she had formed a sort of friendship, developing into more later on and becoming as close as sisters. Amelia had even told her at one point that she thought of her as more of a sister than her biological ones, probably due to the fact that there was only a five-year gap between themselves and over twelve between Amelia and her next sister Lizzie.

Once the check was tucked up safely inside it's envelope, ready to be posted, Meredith glanced up at the picture album on the bookshelf in front of her. The edges were old and torn, having seen its fair share of uses over the years.

Absentmindedly, she began flicking through the pages, Meredith came to a stop on one particular picture. It was of her mother, herself and Thatcher in the park one afternoon when she was three. The distance between her parents then was so painfully obvious and she deduced that the affair was already taking place at that point.

She could feel a presence behind her and turned her head slightly to find Izzie leaning over her, toothbrush in mouth as she looked at the open picture.

As Meredith was trailing her eyes back down to the album in front of her, her eyes caught wind of what Izzie was wearing and she rolled her eyes. _Hello, kitty._

* * *

"You're here early." She nodded to her husband who had his back turned to her, leaning against the nurse's station as he looked through a chart.

He turned to flash her a smile before he turned back around to grab his chart and begin walking with her. "I have a chordotomy at five, I'll be out at six so I thought I'd buy you breakfast before rounds." He told her, watching her closely as they walked. "I know you haven't eaten anything yet because it's four forty-five and you don't function before five thirty. And you've been awake since two, here since three-thirty."

With a smug smile, she replied, "I've already eaten."

"What'd you have?"

Damn, the man wasn't going to give it up. He knew that'd she'd eaten the leftover food from last night, he just wanted her to admit it to him so he could lecture her about her bad eating habits.

Again.

"None of your business."

"It is when I know you've eaten crap again." Shit. "You should eat toast. Cereal. Something that consists as an actual breakfast food, Mer. You're an intern. I've done this. I know what it's like."

"Fine. I ate leftover grilled cheese." She walked past him, ignoring the shout of displeasure he gave.

"That's sad. Pathetic. If you don't start eating properly, I'm going to start force feeding you a decent breakfast."

For a moment, she smiled at the bantering they were doing with each other before remembering where they were and the smile fell. "We can't do this here, Derek. It's unprofessional."

"It's an attending getting to know his intern." He shrugged.

"The attending already knows the intern. Too well."

"Well, she'd my favourite intern."

Meredith whacked him on the arm. "That's favouritism. That's not allowed."

Her husband let out a puff of air. "You're no fun when you're grouchy, you know?"

"And you're going to be late for you chordotomy."

Derek glanced at his watch before straightening back up. He glanced side to side, shaking his shoulders slightly as he spoke. "Nice talking to you, Dr. Grey."

She watched him disappear around the corner, shaking her head at him before she too turned and walked away.

* * *

George was trailing behind her as she bounced from door to door, checking up on her patient's charts. He'd been complaining about Izzie walking around in her underwear for the last five minutes. The decision to have roommates was beginning to drive her nuts. The pair just couldn't get on for the life of them.

"I don't know what you want me to do, George. I can't make her wear clothes if she doesn't want to." Meredith shrugged, hoping he'd get the message and quit following her.

"It's your house, you can do something about it!" He exclaimed, leaning a little too close for comfort.

"Correction, it's my mother's house." _My house doesn't exist yet._

"Meredith please." George was actually begging her at that point and she was about to lose her cool with him.

Thankfully, the pair walked past the nurse's station where Bailey currently was sat.

"O'Malley, Grey. Get Karev and head down to trauma. Shepherd needs you."

At the sound of her husband's name Meredith's head snapped up. Her husband was in surgery, not in ER. "Shepherd's in surgery?"

"He was pulled before he could go in."

"Well, I guess we're going down there then."

* * *

The search to find Alex hadn't been as hard as she thought it was going to be but she could see the glances she was giving between herself and George and it was beginning to make her even more uncomfortable than she already was about him knowing. She didn't know if she could trust him just yet and he had a pretty big secret of hers in his possession. She had her reasons for not wanting to tell anyone about her marriage, she just hoped that he respected her silence and didn't blab to anyone.

Entering the trauma room, Meredith could see her husband sitting at the top of the bed, the patient lying with his head immobilized and blood covering the top portion of his body. There was an x-ray place next to Derek and the neurosurgeon was looking back and forth between the two.

Meredith had to do a double take when she glanced at the x-rays but what she was seeing was true. "Those look like…"

"Nails." Derek nodded at her disbelieving look. The man had seven different nails embedded in his skull and brain. Just from looking at the images, there was a very likely chance that this man wasn't going to make it through the trip to the OR, it was a miracle that he had made it to the hospital without anything shifting and killing him instantly.

With no warning, the man brought his hand's in front of his face, "I can't see my hands!"

George, who had been standing right next to him, jumped backwards. "He's awake?"

She had to admit, the man managed to make her jump too. There was no way he could be conscious.

But alas, this man was very conscious, in a very large amount of pain and needing some medication.

Derek was still shouting out orders about what he wanted done but Meredith could see that the man was beginning to freak out, shouting about how he couldn't see anything. Meredith needed to find a way to get the man to stop moving before he shifted anything and caused himself some major damage.

"I can't see." The man called again.

"It's okay." She tried to reassure him. "we need you to be very still, Mr…" The blonde trailed off, realising that she had no clue what the poor man's name was. Meredith glanced at the nurse over Derek's shoulder, waiting for an answer.

"Cruz. Jorge Cruz. He tripped and fell down a flight of stairs holding a nail gun." The nurse added and Meredith could tell what the look on her face was without having to see it for herself.

Derek was shining his torchlight into the man's eyes, checking his pupils for reactivity. "Somehow, he managed to miss a blood vessel. That's a minor miracle." He muttered the last part to himself. "Optic nerve's been affected."

"Can you feel this?" No response. "Numbness on his right side. What's our immediate concern?"

"Infection."

"I want these nails out in the next half-hour. I need a CT."

"CTs are down." The nurse called out again and the annoyance was visible on Derek's face.

"They exchanged them out last night, computers crashed. They'll be back up by one."

'Typical. What are the options?"

"MRI." Meredith heard George call out and almost groaned at the stupidity of the answer. Maybe George shouldn't be a doctor if he's coming up with answers like that.

"Brilliant. He has nails in his head, put him in a giant magnet!" Alex beat her too it, calling out sarcastically as he thumped George on the arm. "You want films from three axis points and a C-arm in surgery."

Derek sent George and Alex off to do research on the case after that, leaving her with instructions to "Stay with him, keep him calm and look for changes."

At least she was away from the topic of Izzie walking around naked.

* * *

" _ **Also," Alex added after a moment of silence. "George is going to be devastated."**_

" _ **Meredith blinked. George? "George?"**_

" _ **Well, yeah. He's got some sort of crush on you. In fact, I'm pretty sure the dudes in love with you. Shame for him though."**_

" _ **Alex, I really am not following this conversation so please make it clear what you're talking about before I walk out of this locker room and leave you to talk bullshit to yourself." She snapped at him.**_

" _ **You're married, aren't you? Or was that some random rambling yesterday. 'I have a clingy husband'?"**_

 _For a moment, Meredith swore everything around her froze. She stopped breathing, her heart stopped for a beat, the noise outside in the hallway quietened down._

 _And then, everything came back, all rushing into reality at once. Her head spun a little as she looked at the taller man in front of her. "I don't know what you're talking about."_

" _Sure you don't, Grey." Alex rolled his eyes. "I know you're lying at this point."_

" _I'm not, Alex." She tried to insist but Alex was having none of it._

" _Firstly, your wedding rings are hanging out the top of your scrub shirt. Well, I assume their yours because having someone else's wedding rings is a little weird."_

 _True to his word the rings were hanging out the top of her scrub shirt, resting against the material for all to see. How long had they been hanging out for?_

" _And secondly, the paranoid look of panic that just came across your face? That totally gives you away."_

 _This whole keeping her marriage a secret thing was not working out well, two people who weren't supposed to know, knew. Although, the first person who knew was Cristina and she had been the one to tell her about her marriage. Alex had figured it out on his own. The man was smarter than she gave him credit for._

" _Or maybe you're hiding something bigger about your marriage, seeing as the way you're acting about someone finding out is pretty extreme, Grey."_

 _As long as he didn't put two and two together about Derek being in the locker room. Dressed in street clothes. When there was only the two of them in there._

 _The signs weren't that obvious… were they?_

" _Whatever, it's not like it's my business to know. Just don't let Izzie get wind of the gossip. You'd never hear the end of it and everyone at the hospital would find out."_

" _Look, Alex," She began and the man turned to look at her. "Could you just keep this information between us? I'm not ready for people to know about my husband and I just yet and I'd like to keep it that way."_

 _Alex just looked at her for a moment, silent before he nodded. "Yeah, whatever. Like I said, it's none of my business."_

 _Still not moving from her previous position, Meredith watched as he too pulled on a fresh set of scrubs, having been on – call the previous night, before leaving the locker room to go back out onto the hospital floor._

 _With a small groan, Meredith dropped her head into her hands, thinking of the different ways that Alex knowing something personal about her could be taken._

 _Scraping her long, blonde hair back into a ponytail, Meredith forced herself to get up off the bench and follow Alex's footsteps, beginning her shift._

* * *

They'd agreed to have lunch together that afternoon in Derek's office, as not to draw attention to themselves out in the open.

Meredith had been sent by Bailey to check up on her post-op patient and so had told Derek to run and grab their lunch without her, that she'd be up in his office as soon as she was done.

So, ten minutes later, Derek was still sat on his couch, the two salads he'd bought sprawled out on the table in front of him, still untouched.

The sound of a sharp knock on the door brought him out of his train of thought. His tiny blonde wife appeared around the door frame, looking slightly out of breath as she grinned at him.

"Hey! Sorry I took so long but Bailey wanted me to also run another set of labs on the man as well and you know how long the lab takes to even drop something off." She made her way across the room and forced Derek to move on the couch so he had his back pressed against the arm of the couch and she was settled against his chest, legs sprawled in front of her.

Grabbing the two salads and handing one to Derek, Meredith wasted no time in ripping hers open and proceeding to stab it rather violently with her plastic fork.

Derek watched her from behind, eyebrows crinkling together a little as he watched her. "Everything ok?"

"Honestly?" She asked before shoving a forkful of lettuce into her mouth. "I don't know." She told him once she'd swallowed.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Well, you know how we weren't going to tell anyone?" She began pushing a piece of chicken around the plastic take away container before giving it a stab.

"You told someone?"

"not exactly…" Meredith trailed off for a moment, trying to come up with an explanation for what had happened. "You know Alex, right?"

Derek thought for a moment before answering. "He's the one you had pinned against the locker, right?"

"Mhm," Meredith confirmed. "Well, he figured it out himself. My rings had fallen out of my scrub top and he noticed them and then when I was ranting to him the day we were fighting, I may have let slip that I had a husband… I may have said 'I have a clingy husband' or something." Derek let out a quiet 'hey!' from behind her but she ignored him and continued on. "And well, he heard me say that and now he knows."

"Does he know you're married to me?" Derek asked but secretly, he was kind of glad that people were beginning to find out about their marriage. He knew that Meredith wanted to keep it between them for the moment because she didn't want people to think she had married him because of his status but at the same time, he knew there was no way they were going to be able to keep their marriage a secret for seven years. He wanted people to know that she was his and he wanted O'Malley to stop staring at his wife with those creepy eyes.

"No, at least I don't think he does. I never told him that I was married to you specifically but you did come into the intern locker room dressed in your own clothes the other day, and why would the head of neurosurgery come into the _intern locker room_ if he didn't have a specific reason to do so?" Meredith got out in one breath and Derek was still amazed after ten years that she could say so much in such a small space of time. "If he does know it's you then he would have had to figure it out for himself."

"Meredith…" Derek began, approaching the topic cautiously. "Maybe it's a good thing people are finding out. We can't keep us to ourselves forever."

Meredith let loose a groan and dropped back dramatically into Derek's chest, waving the hand with a fork in around to emphasise her point. "I want to establish myself in this hospital before people find out, Der. I don't want people thinking I'm a whore again because I'm married to you, that I want to have the power of being your wife to get myself up in the surgical world. I've worked too hard for this to let it go down the drain right now."

"But you married me before I was where I am today, you didn't know that I was going to be at this level ten years ago when you met me or eight when we got married."

"I know _we_ know that Derek, but they don't know that and you know how much people love a gossip in hospitals. You would think they'd be more interested in doing their jobs and saving people's lives but whatever." Her salad was being stabbed viciously again. "They'll probably come up with some rumour that we got married six weeks ago after a drunk night out and that you want a divorce and who'd actually want to be with the whore who marries to get ahead!" Meredith exclaimed before suddenly going very still and Derek knew that she was blinking back tears.

Everything Meredith had just said had been somewhat what had happened back in New York. When people found out that Derek had married her at nineteen, they were quick to assume and judge them. They'd say Derek was trying to live his youth through his wife, that he was just looking for someone younger than him and when he got bored of her, he'd divorce her and find someone young again, that he'd find another 'love'.

For Meredith, she was a gold digger, she only married Derek for three things, his wealth, his status in the surgical world and for his looks. That she was too young to know what it was like to be in love at nineteen and spend the rest of her life with the same man.

There had been many nights during Meredith's time at Med-school where she'd found herself crying in the middle of the night, years of isolation catching up with her and the lack of love she'd had as child letting her thoughts drift and coming up with many scenarios of Derek leaving her in the middle of the night.

Those were the worst nights for them. Meredith would let out the pain she'd kept bottled up for years as a child and Derek having to watch his love break down and not being able to do anything for her pain.

Grabbing the container from her hand, he placed the plastic on the table before turning her around so she was diagonal across his lap, head tucked under his chin. She grabbed a fistful of his scrub shirt, a few tears slipping down her cheeks, opening the floodgates for the rest.

They sat like that for twenty minutes, before the sobs became hiccups and her shoulders had stopped shaking so violently. Derek had been whispering soothing things the entire time but wasn't sure if they were getting through to her, he was never sure when she worked herself up to this point. He was just thankful she hadn't worked herself up to a panic attack, knowing it would have wiped her out for the rest of the day.

Glancing down at her face, he could see the drying tear tracks on her cheeks as her eyelashes brushed softly against them, fluttering in her sleep.

The soft buzzing that came with his phone ringing on silent echoed through the small office. Thanking the stars he'd put his phone on silent, he flipped it open and hit accept.

"Hello?"

"Derek, it's been a while since we've heard from you."

"Ma," He rolled his eyes gently. We've been busy. I'm sure you remember when I started my intern year and there's a lot to do as a department head."

"Don't roll your eyes at me sir," His mother chided from the other side of the phone, of course she would know he'd rolled his eyes at her and he had to resist rolling his eyes for the second time. "Can't a mother want a phone call from her only son and daughter – in – law once in a while?"

"We would have called, Ma."

"I'm sure you would have," The sarcastic reply was. "Now, why are you talking so quietly?"

Glancing down at the woman still curled up on his chest, he sighed. "That was a sigh. What are you sighing for? Are things not going to well, Derek?"

"The medicine side of it isn't too bad I'm just not sure how Meredith is settling into the social side of things."

Concern immediately flooded the older woman, "What do you mean? Meredith isn't adjusting too well?"

"I mean, she managed to find roommates so she's starting to make friends, but she's terrified about them finding out about us. She just fell asleep after she cried herself out because she was worried about being called a whore again – like back in New York." Meredith stirred slightly and he let his free hand stroke her hair slightly.

"She's not adjusting then." It was a statement this time from Caroline. She knew how her daughter adjusted to new things, although she thought things were getting better for her, but apparently she seemed to be doing exactly the same, possibly even going backwards.

"Is there anything I can do?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"At this moment, no not really," Derek told her, wishing there was more she could do for them. T was one of those things they needed to deal with themselves. "But I'll let you know if something does come up. Now, we both know that you didn't call just to have a little chat."

"Thanksgiving."

"Ma, that's three months away!" Derek exclaimed but deep down, he wasn't too surprised his mother was trying to organise things this early.

"And you know how long it takes to organise things in this family. I wanted to make sure you _are_ coming this year." His mother's tone was flat but he could tell that they were going to be expected to attend, no excuse valid.

"We'll try but it'll depend on if we can get time off, interns don't get that luxury ad I don't really want to be asking for time off so soon into the job." Derek told her, already predicting what was going to happen if he flat out told her they weren't going to be coming – there would be guilt trips every phone call for the next years and Caroline might even be tempted to send out the troops – the sisters and their mini armies. "Ma, I'll get back to you. My pager just rung. Bye."

Derek hung up before his mother could have a chance to protest and he knew that he was going to pay for hanging up on his mother but he didn't want to talk about going home at that moment. There were more important things that needed his attention. If his mother found out he lied about the page though, when they did go home, he was going to pay hell for the move.

A blanket was folded neatly across the back of the couch and Derek carefully and skilfully moved himself to grab it before securely tucking it around the pair of them, setting an alarm for thirty minutes when he knew Meredith would have to get back out on the floor for rounds before leaning his head back and pulling his still sleeping wife towards him.

* * *

 **Chapter four came with a much smaller wait than last time. I've spent the last couple of days writing this in between work and college so I hope that it's ok! Everyone went nuts over the last chapter so I hope you'll give a similar response to this one! Thank you for 110+ follows over the course of the last couple of months along with the thirty-five reviews, they mean a lot and I love every one of them!**


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